Ron Sorenson in the KFMG studios on the 11th floor of the Hotel Fort Des Moines - on Monday, June 14 as the low-power FM station signed back on the air. / KYLE MUNSON/THE REGISTER

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It was easy to tell it was a milestone, because the 15-minute song "Freedom" by 1960s psychedelic-rock band Sons of Champlin was playing.

It was noon Monday in Suite 1107, on the 11th floor of the Hotel Fort Des Moines.

And it was the eighth time in 39 years on a Des Moines radio station that "Freedom" was used to mark a pivotal moment in the life and career of Ron Sorenson.

"Freedom" in this case signaled the return of KFMG (99.1) to the FM dial in downtown Des Moines. The low-power FM station was launched in 2007 but had to go on hiatus in January while a new nonprofit group, the Des Moines Community Radio Foundation, took ownership with official blessing from the Federal Communications Commission.

But in the long view it's merely the latest chapter in the many deaths and reincarnations of KFMG — as the station's and Sorenson's influence have been felt across the dial.

Whenever he's launched or shut down a station, Sorenson has cued up "Freedom" as a quirky ritual.

Sorenson, 62, was joined for the occasion Monday in the KFMG studios by half a dozen of his colleagues — all men who remember the 1970s as a heyday of free-form radio playlists.

"I just wanted to be here for the electric moment," die-hard bluesman and KFMG volunteer Don "T-Bone" Erickson said with a big grin.

"This is not my radio station, it's the community's radio station," Sorenson clarified before going on the air. He's among the new foundation's 15 board members, a who's who of key figures from local entertainment and arts organizations, including the Des Moines Art Center and Orchestrate Management.

Programs and the volunteer staff of 25 will remain nearly identical to KFMG's pre-hiatus lineup, still "very much slanted towards the cultural community," as Sorenson put it.

It might be easy to pigeonhole Sorenson as a radio relic — a bearded and bespectacled former hippie who likes to lapse into an English accent just for the fun of it. Even though KFMG plans to resume online streaming at www.kfmg991.org by next week, he's a low-power crusader with a 95-watt tower in an iTunes world.

But Sorenson loves music, and the late-'60s ideal of the radio show as an art form, with the DJ as taste-maker, still shapes his life.

"It has occasionally been a struggle to follow this muse," he admitted.

The original KFMG was launched in 1964 at 94.9 FM (today's KGGO) as a classical music station. Its call letters were intended to convey "Fine Music" as much as "Frequency Modulation." DJs were hired according to their "ability to pronounce correctly and use fluently the complex names of classical music composers and their works." It was estimated that only about 20,000 FM receivers were in Des Moines at that time.

Sorenson joined the staff circa 1967, when the studios were located on the 11th floor of the Brown Hotel in downtown Des Moines, long since demolished. (Yes, his KFMG journey began and now has returned to the 11th floor of a downtown hotel.)

The modern spirit of KFMG took hold in March 1970 when 94.9 converted from classical to progressive rock and folk. But even then the station stumbled through roadblocks — temporarily signing off late in 1970 as it switched transmission towers.

Sorenson established the "Freedom" ritual in June 1971. He led the "Committee to Free KFMG" and was among four DJs who resigned live on the air, cued up the tune, stormed out in protest and locked the studio doors behind them. Their beef was with the new KFMG owners' decision to program a daytime diet of commercial top 40 hits.

Remember that it was a different world then, with the counterculture "music guys" on one side and the business-minded "radio guys" on the other.

Less than two months later, KFMG relented to the organized protest (including a petition signed by 6,000 listeners) and returned to a full-time progressive playlist.

But Sorenson was still out. So from 1975 to 1992, his approximation of KFMG survived as KBLE, a cable-only radio station.

In the late '80s and early '90s he waged a costly, marathon legal battle to try to establish KFMG at 107.5 on the FM dial — where the pop music of "Kiss" KKDM-FM is now heard.

"It's the American dream to have your own radio station in your own hometown," Sorenson told the Register in June 1991.

He lost the battle for 107.5 but in 1992 landed at 103.3 FM (today's KAZR, or "Lazer"), where KFMG thrived until 1996 as a cultural force if not as a lucrative business.

"The fact that I'm not retiring to the good life on Aruba is really not that important," Sorenson said.

The latest, low-power version of KFMG requires a modest annual budget of $100,000 to subsist, supported by business underwriters, grants and listener donations. Listeners should be able to pick up the signal from three to seven miles away, depending on whether they're in a valley or on a hill.

Sorenson's pro bono attorney guiding the station through the FCC gantlet is Greg Page of the Nyemaster Law Firm, a rabid music fan.

Page worries about the next hurdle: Boone radio station KTIA wants to relocate its 99.3 FM signal and its nationally syndicated Christian talk programming to Johnston, which could muscle KFMG's local DJs off the dial.

Meanwhile, renovation of the Hotel Fort Des Moines is slated to begin in November — so KFMG will need new digs.

But this week has been all about a fresh taste of freedom for KFMG, no matter how fleeting.

"I don't think I've had this big a smile on my face in awhile," Sorenson said Monday from behind the mixing board as the music played.

Kyle Munson can be reached at (515) 284-8124 or kmunson@dmreg.com. Connect with him on Facebook (Kyle Munson's Iowa), Twitter (@KyleMunson) and his blog (DesMoinesRegister.com/KyleMunson).